Hey Puzzlers,
With Puzzling Places coming to Steam, we wanted to take a moment to explain what you’re getting when you buy the game and our plans around additional free and paid downloadable content (DLC) and community puzzles. As a small indie team and gamers ourselves, it’s important to us to be transparent, so you can decide if this is something you’ll enjoy =)
If you prefer watching over reading, we also made a video summary here:
A complete game from the start
First, If you buy Puzzling Places on Steam, you get a complete and finished game for $7.99.
It includes 18 carefully selected puzzles that aim to give you a well-rounded and diverse experience. You’ll visit different locations, explore a variety of moods, and piece together a range of subjects from medieval fortresses and beautiful temples to lively street scenes and cozy nooks. You can play through all of them, take your time with each puzzle, and simply enjoy the experience as it is.
If that’s all you’re looking for, that’s absolutely fine, the game is designed to stand on its own.
Optional Puzzle Pack DLCs for more puzzles
If you find yourself wanting more after that, we’ll be offering additional puzzles as optional, paid Puzzle Pack DLCs as well as the occasional free puzzle.
This approach grew naturally over time. When we first released our Puzzling Places prototype in 2020, players very quickly asked us for more puzzles - and we wanted to keep making them. Exploring new places, capturing new stories, and experimenting with new ideas is a big part of what makes this project exciting for both us and our players.
Creating new puzzles takes time. From scanning real-world locations to crafting the final experience with sound, detail, and interaction. Releasing them as individual Puzzle Packs allows us to keep doing that work sustainably, while continuing to improve and expand the game over time. Since 2021, this approach has grown into a library of over 300 puzzles, with new ones released regularly.
Monthly Packs: We release at least one pack per month, usually on the first Thursday of the month. Most of those Monthly Packs packs consist of 6 puzzles and sell for around $4.99. Some of the packs are curated around themes like Spring or Greece, some are mixed. You can get a great overview of past packs on our blog here.
Premium Puzzles: Sometimes we also put some extra work into an especially cool location or pack, adding special effects, extra animations or even more intricate soundscapes, often exploring something new. These puzzles then get released either as Single Premium Puzzles for $1.99 or as a Premium Pack with 4-6 puzzles for $5.99.
Over the coming month we’ll also port our existing puzzle library to Steam step by step, starting with the most popular ones. As we go along we will offer some great bundles for those looking to pick up a good chunk of Puzzle Packs for cheap. Our goal is to achieve content parity by end of the year.
Free puzzles and special collaborations
Alongside paid DLC, we also release puzzles that can be claimed for free by all players!
These are often tied to holidays or special occasions, and can be claimed for free during a limited time window. We’ve also worked on collaborations that bring unique locations and themes into the game.
We plan to continue doing both—so there will always be opportunities to expand your collection without additional cost.
Puzzle Maker and community puzzles
In addition to our own Puzzle Packs, we’re also working on Puzzle Maker, a tool that will let you create and share your own puzzles!
With it, you’ll be able to turn compatible 3D scans into puzzles, load them into Puzzling Places, and share them with other players via the Steam Workshop. You’ll also be able to browse and play puzzles created by the community.
We see this as a complementary, community-driven way to expand the game alongside our own DLCs and another way for the game to grow beyond what we can create on our own.
How much or how little you engage with the paid DLC packs is entirely up to you. You can stick with the base game and the free puzzles, pick up additional Puzzle Packs whenever something catches your interest, build up your collection via bundles or just dive into the world of community puzzles. Our goal is simply to always have a fun new puzzle available for you =)